Authors:
Bin Zhou, Qing Ma Satish Rajagopal, Sean M. Wu Ibrahim Domian, José Rivera-Feliciano, Dawei Jiang, Alexander von Gise, Sadakatsu Ikeda, Kenneth R. Chien, & William T. Pu
Summary:
The heart is formed from cardiogenic progenitors expressing the transcription factors Nkx2-5 and Isl1. These multipotent progenitors give rise to cardiomyocyte, smooth muscle and endothelial cells, the major lineages of the mature heart. Here we identify a novel cardiogenic precursor marked by expression of the transcription factor Wt1 and located within the epicardium—an epithelial sheet overlying the heart. During normal murine heart development, a subset of these Wt1+ precursors differentiated into fully functional cardiomyocytes. Wt1+ proepicardial cells arose from progenitors that express Nkx2-5 and Isl1, suggesting that they share a developmental origin with multipotent Nkx2-5+ and Isl1+ progenitors. These results identify Wt1+ epicardial cells as previously unrecognized cardiomyocyte progenitors, and lay the foundation for future efforts to harness the cardiogenic potential of these progenitors for cardiac regeneration and repair.
Source:
Nature; 454, 109-113, 07/03/08